When Sharks training camp opened in September, there was a growing optimism. Stalock skated for the first time. He slowly worked up to a rehab stint with Stockton, a minor league affiliate for the Sharks and Edmonton Oilers, making his return on Jan. 21. -Mercury News

It’s a very good story about a player and a recovery that is just this side of miraculous. Yet Emmons doesn’t mention the name of the minor league. Sigh.

The league’s name is sort of like Ulysses S Grant’s middle name: just initials. Unlike Grant, the league does have a proper name where the initials are: East Coast Hockey League, but nobody out here calls it that. It’s one of those names that tells you where someone came from but not what or where they are now. “Taylor,” for example: once upon a time, someone in that family was a tailor, probably in England. The odds are pretty slim that this person is actually a tailor in England now.